Saturday, October 29, 2005

Independent Online Edition > Business News: "The company ordered 10.8 million copies of Half-Blood Prince, the largest print run in the history of publishing. 'We wanted enough books out there so every single fan could get a book when they wanted it,' explained Scholastic's Kyle Good. 'This was the number we came up with in collaboration with the retailers.'

Buoyed by the news that Half-Blood Prince had sold 6.9 million copies in the first 24 hours, 1.9 million more than on the first day of the previous Potter tome, Scholastic promptly ordered a further 2.7 million copies, bringing the total to 13.5 million.

'This is a cause for celebration, not just for Scholastic but for book lovers everywhere,' chirped Lisa Holton, the president of Scholastic Children's Books, at the time.

Now, Scholastic's chairman, Richard Robinson, whose father Robbie founded the firm in 1920, admits bookshops have been left with 2.5 million unsold copies."

EiTB24.com: "Some 800,000 copies of the official Chinese edition of the latest Harry Potter book have been distributed to bookstores across the country, the government said, almost three months after illegal versions were sold."